Case Study Report to Evaluate the Effectiveness of a Specific, Existing Multi-Platform Media Campaign.

A media campaign is a controlled key marketing feature that reinforces to assist businesses or products using one or more media platform. These campaigns differ from everyday media efforts to focus to target the audience. I have recently analysed the media campaign

surrounding the theatrical and home release of the Deadpool movies. In this Case study, I highly focused on how they promoted the film through the use of a media campaign and how it was focused on multiple communication channels. I also looked at the effectiveness of the communication channels and the media campaign. This Case study does include elements from both Deadpool One and Two.

Deadpool is rated R, which is Rated a 15 in the UK. Despite, the age rating the average age was 35 years old, 62% of people being male. In Deadpool 2 there were 62% that were males, watched the film. Due to the advertisements and marketing material, the film was aimed at viewers aged 18-33 or even older. This is down to the types

of ways they added content to media about the film. For example, a tinder account was made for Deadpool, and even the trailer of the film being uploaded to adult video sharing website, Pornhub.

With Deadpool there were multiple communication channels that help boost the film to become a viral campaign. I personally believe that two out of the three communication channels this campaign used were used to its potential, however one if these was lacking or even rejected by its target audience.

One of the communication channels used was the internet. There were many ways this campaign used efficient amount of internet to present Deadpool. The internet was used for articles about the film (https://www.wired.com/2016/02/deadpool-marketing/).Another communication channel used was broadcasts through TV. On TV, Reynolds appeared in multiple adverts and celebrity’s TV shows; often in character as Deadpool... One example is CONAN on TBS (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3k9CgOGCFQ). This is an American Talk show in which Ryan Reynolds released the first ever trailer for the first Deadpool movie. However, one communication channel that was ignored and weren’t much of it all was the Print platform. This requires things like newspapers or magazines. Deadpool appeared on some magazines like Empire which focuses on movies and films. However, Magazines are never really bought and seen by other people unless they have an interest in films in general, or generally are comic fans. Also, I believe that what drives most advertisements, or any campaigns now are things like: Social Media, TV and Internet resources and articles. No one really looks at any newspapers or magazines anymore. Likewise, to Deadpool and how they presented the campaign, they used social media and other internet resources to send their campaign to a much larger scale of viewers. I personally think,

newspapers, magazines, flyers, brochures and billboards weren’t used as much as the other two communication channels. I fully believe it’s because they’re dated and not very many viewers as they would’ve using Internet and Broadcasting resources. Everything made for this film was made to go viral and using Print wouldn’t achieve this. The two main

broadcast channels for this campaign really did focus on Internet, as it was driven by Twitter and YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci7lfHf4SAw). These are two of the fastest growing internet sources and more people are using them by the day,

Synergy was used throughout the campaign to help boost the profile of Deadpool and promote the movie. Deadpool’s campaign used a lot of traditional components to help boost the campaign, this included green banded trailers but also Deadpool was invading most mainstream

events such as the Super Bowl, holding its official press junket the day before the game not far from Levi's Stadium in the Bay Area. This was massive and was going viral about what had happened, at the same time the film was being promoted, also interacting with most of viewers that would watch the film. On this occasion, a range of toys were produced to help promote the films and hinting potential spoilers of the film.

In the opening weekend of release its office gross was $132.75m, $783,112,979 Worldwide. This was breaking records and having a higher gross than other films like: American Sniper, Fifty Shades of Grey and even Straight Out of Compton. In February 12th to 14th, Deadpool in the UK brought $19,921,652. Bringing an additional $8,202,296 on February 19th to 21st. The release figures however do not take top spot on release gross; Batman v Superman; Dawn of Justice, holding $330,360,194.

According to demographics too, 40% of all attendance was on the opening weekend showing that this was an eagerly anticipated film with 65% of attendee’s being male. The average age of movie goers on the opening weekend was 33.5 showing that older people than the target audience were also interested in this film. Over the full run the average age was 35.3 years of age with nearly 37%of Deadpool's audience between the ages of 18 and 24.

A huge component of the Media Campaign was Deadpool actor Ryan Reynolds’ presence and utilisation of social media on a large scale. In the media, Ryan Reynolds dressed and appeared as the character Deadpool, presenting media for the audience. He was always breaking the ‘fourth wall’, always talking to the audience. Just like in one example, Deadpool made an awareness video for testicular cancer and that ‘men should touch themselves’ to check for signs of testicular cancer. He did this in a comedic way but was respectful to the message of cancer awareness. Campaign resources like this help the media campaign reach a greater audience as it made people think about the issue, check if there is a problem and then actions should be taken. The fact that the Deadpool character was himself a sufferer of cancer made this advert “fit” quite well.

Another example to help boost the media campaign was the amount of posts Ryan Reynolds posted on his Twitter, making Twitter quite used, following YouTube as the most used media resource for this campaign. This would indicate how his day of filming the film went and most of the time… it would hold a comedic response. He also made seasonal adverts, i.e. for Christmas, making the campaign because it was Christmas related. This was the Deadpool 12 days of Christmas. This showed the timeliness of the campaign and that the marketing team weren’t afraid to use traditional Christmas marketing on a film that most would consider not to be a traditional Christmas film.

After the first film, Deadpool had already been introduced to the public around the world. They made the campaign out to show that the audience should know what to expect with him now. In Deadpool 2 they did aim to continue with the same advertising techniques to make things go viral and talked about, however they didn’t need to introduce who Deadpool was anymore. This time round, I personally believe that for the 2nd Deadpool there were

more aim media to influence other celebrities to get involved with the film. One example of this is the advert of him painting, dressed like the famous artist Bob Ross. (https://youtu.be/2-5Wv9UGkN8). This was a recreated parody of the artist, making it very comedic and humorous. People even like Hugh Jackman and David Beckham, were getting involved and they didn’t have any role in the movie. They helped the campaign by helping in small clips or posting on their social media.

Cohesion was massively used across the campaign, to keep the same messages or intertextuality as in the original Deadpool campaign. One example of this is the photo of most of the characters sat at a dinner table,

with Deadpool holding a whole Turkey. This was a clear parody of the painting by Norman Rockwell from 1943. It acts almost like the campaign is trying to overwrite history and make themselves seen more known. It is also a funny act, so people will engage, share and comment about it and therefore it went viral.

I personally believe that Deadpool is one of the most successful media campaigns. From where they began and when it was speculated that FOX was going to drop the film. The film has been released and massive profits have been made. Considering the film was on a low budget for making the film, this film made big money when released. The first one made more gross of: $363,070,709, whereas the second only made $318,491,031. Everything they made they wanted to make go viral, when things were released, things went instantly viral, making this campaign massively popular, causing people wanting to watch the film. Screenrant news also presented the quote of “the best film marketing campaign in the history of cinema! The marketing team make stunts that appear as though the character himself is crafting them!”

When released it had been gaining over 114 million hits on the movie, being the most viewed red-band trailer in history too. Likewise, to the second film, the franchise was that popular and ‘viral’ that there was a lot of celebrity endorsements. Famous celebrities like Hugh Jackman or David Beckham (https://youtu.be/uxbQATBAXf8).

Celebs even like James Corden helped promote the film on his ‘Late Late Show’. This shows succession as Lots of people/ viewers were engaged to get involved and watch the campaigns resources and media that was being released.

I believe personally they did have a fair few weaknesses. The Deadpool campaign focused on using magazines to promote their campaign. Now magazines are a dying product in advertisement, not very many people look to buy them. Too add on, the empire magazine is the biggest movies magazine, of the UK. This means only the fair few people of the UK who pay for this magazine would see this. Likewise to billboards, only America got billboards which means only the viewers that saw this were American. Essentially, the campaign was using place specific advertisement sources instead of worldwide sources. This is why they heavily relied on using social media platforms, which in my opinion was a successful source for the campaign.